I'm listening to the audiobook of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It has a new introduction for the 50th Anniversary edition. The intro is a very good. It grounds the reading in today's world. And it discusses how the work has been co-opted and commodified since it's publishing.
This will be my third time with this text. The first time I couldn't understand it. I didn't have the vocabulary. The second time, it definitely changed me. But it is a dense read, and I wasn't able to internalize it. I'm hoping I get even more out of it this time around.
Audiobooks have been a huge shift for me in terms of reading difficult texts. I've been struggling with my ability to focus even before the pandemic, but greatly exacerbated by it. Audio allows me to listen and process without the same focus of visual reading.
I tend to read slowly. Part of that is because I go back and read passages multiple times. Trying to make sure I understand it. I don't have a memory for quotes. Instead I have to internalize meaning and build my own mental models. Dense texts are particularly difficult for me.
What's weird about Pedagogy of the Oppressed is that it takes a seemingly academic approach to describing how the masses might be educated about their own oppression. I haven't been able to reconcile that for myself, but the new introduction tries to address it as well.
The reason I keep coming back to this book is that I have a deep need to try and understand the *mechanisms* of oppression. Not only to accept and believe it exists. Not just to describe it academically. But to see and understand the ways it actually manifests in the world.
Y'all know one of my core philosophies. There is no magic. It's one thing to believe in the concept of oppression. But we also have to learn to see it clearly. To be able to identify oppressors in the real world. We have to do that before we can fight them
https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1135150377073086464?s=19
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